Murdered Sterling Heights woman's son to remain with fiance for now

The fiancé of a Sterling Heights woman found shot to death along a Detroit freeway will continue taking care of her son while a legal custody battle plays out in Macomb Probate Court.

Judge Kathryn Viviano of Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens recently moved the case to Probate Court and for the meantime maintained the current status of the late Jennifer Scavone’s 11-year-old son remaining under the care of her live-in boyfriend, Keven Finley.

Scavone was found dead the early morning hours of Feb. 9 from multiple gunshot wounds slumped over the steering wheel of her running vehicle on the shoulder of Interstate-75 in Detroit, hours after she finished working as a waitress at a Greektown topless club.

Michigan State Police Sgt. Julie Busch said Friday the investigation is ongoing.

Scavone and the boy’s father, Josef Zbercot of Roseville, have had a years-long court battle over custody-related issues. Scavone had recently filed a motion to suspend or terminate Zbercot’s parental rights. He pleaded guilty Feb. 8 in an Erie County, Ohio, court to assaulting a young relative by forcing the child to grope him at a hotel during a 2012 trip to Cedar Point amusement park. Zbercot is scheduled to serve 60 days in jail beginning in March and will have to register as a sex offender in Ohio.

Zbercot’s grandmother, Mary Beth Zbercot, after Scavone’s slaying filed an emergency custody motion, followed by a similar filing by Scavone’s father, the maternal grandfather of the child. The dispute will proceed as a guardianship case, with the next hearing set for March 26 in front of Judge Carl Marilinga, said Mary Beth Zbercot’s attorney, James Tanielian.

“It would be automatic” for the child to go to Mary Beth Zbercot if Scavone’s father had not filed, Tanielian said.